Most critics agree that Eastwood has taken a poor novel and made a good film. The recurring surprise is that Waller’s over-ripe prose has been pared down to a restrained two-hander, and that the restraint is what makes it work. The praise clusters on the two central performances, Streep’s above all, and on the kitchen-table scenes where the affection is built out of small looks and pauses rather than speeches. Eastwood’s slow, plain direction is credited with keeping the sentiment in check.
Where they part is over how much of the book’s sentimental core survives. Variety thinks it remains a limitation, the Los Angeles Times finds the film genteel and slow, and The New Yorker settles for calling it half-good, with the leads fighting the material rather than served by it. The spread is narrow, though: no review is negative, and the later pieces, from Slant and Collider, are warmer about the minimalism than the notices of 1995.